


all the girls with heads inside a dream (& nothing’s wrong but nothing’s true)

by possibilist



Series: Fool's Gold Carmilla HSAU Deleted Scenes [4]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, F/M, Other, carmilla would be such a pretentious fuck in class though, yoooooooo danny & carmilla are the best brotp but tHEY FIGHT ALL THE TIME IT'S SO FUN TO WRITE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 03:08:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3158927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilist/pseuds/possibilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You wonder if she remember the fact that she was actually nice to you once when she storms out of class later."</p><p>hsau deleted scene(s): how danny & carmilla know each other; danny's pov, freshman, sophomore, junior years. there's a little bit of zeta society, a little bit of hollstein, but all of it is canon up to this point, so no actual romance. however. LaFerry. totally there. </p><p>canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the girls with heads inside a dream (& nothing’s wrong but nothing’s true)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatsthedamage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsthedamage/gifts).



> bianca & olivia wanted to see their hsau canon for danny & carmilla knowing each other before the actual start of hsau, & they gave me these specs, so here ya go. :)
> 
> there's some implied & possibly triggering stuff, like carmilla wincing & having bruises, SJ's death, & laura's implied eating disorder, & danny's referenced tough coming out, but nothing is explicit.

**all the girls with heads inside a dream ( & nothing’s wrong but nothing’s true)**

.

_i remember when your head caught flame/ it kissed your scalp & caressed your brain/ well you laughed, baby, it’s okay/ it’s buzzcut season anyway/ i’ll never go home again/ place the call, feel it start/ favorite friend_  
—lorde, ‘buzzcut season’

//

The only really annoying thing about breaking up with your boyfriend is that now you have absolutely no halloween costume for the party you’re going to later that night, and you’re a freshman so you kind of want to be at least a little cool to your upperclassman Summer Society sisters who will be there. You sigh as you walk into the CVS a few minutes from your house. You figure going as a zombie shouldn’t be all that hard, because you have some old clothes you can rip up a little bit, and how hard can makeup actually be?

Although—you’re not really the makeup kind of girl, because you have track practice, like, every day, and you don’t really care. You wear a little mascara here and there, but you’re not really well-versed.

You randomly wander around a few aisles for a little bit, trying to think if you need anything else, but you think you’re good, so you head over to where there’s a  _lot_ of makeup. You kind of just stare at it all for a few minutes, trying to figure out where to start, or what you should even buy, and then a girl who’s probably around your age walks and says a quiet  _excuse me_  before shuffling past you and bending down to grab a very large tube of what you’re pretty sure is concealer. She’s in all black and when she leans over you see a bruise blooming on one side of her back, and it makes you wince. She kind of small, and she’s carrying a gigantic bag of halloween candy in her right arm, and when she stands back up and you get to actually look at her, you see that she has  _perfect_ makeup on. You’re not shy, you never have been, and she’s pretty and you’re a little short on time, so you say, “Hey, you know about makeup, right?”

She turns to you with a furrowed brow. “Yeah,” she says slowly. “Why?”

“I have to have a halloween costume in two hours and I don’t really have a clue how to make myself look like a zombie, so—can you help?”

She laughs. “I guess, sure.”

“Awesome,” you say. She walks closer to you and unceremoniously hands you the bag of candy, and then she says, “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?”

“You too,” you say, holding the bag up.

She rolls her eyes and then wanders a little down the aisle to some eyeshadow. “Yeah, well, my mom forgot to get candy and I don’t want some kid to show up and throw a fit on the porch if we don’t have any, so whatever.”

You nod. “Fair enough.”

She grabs a case of something and looks it over before putting it back and then looking up at you carefully, squinting a little bit, and then going back to look at another case. 

“I broke up with my boyfriend,” you say, and a hint of a smile tugs at her face, and for some reason—you don’t know her, this is random, she seems cool,  _you don’t know_ —continue with, “for his sister.”

She booms a laugh at that and nods. “Good taste, then, cutie.”

You blush a little but roll your eyes. “Yeah, well, we were gonna do a couple’s costume, but now, you know, we’re not a couple, so. I have a party and I have to get ready.”

She grabs a case with a satisfied nod and then points to a few colors in front of you. “So, bruises—you know, zombies and their pathetic black eyes or whatever—should be a little lighter in the middle, then a little darker around that, and end with some reddish yellow around the edges. You apply this with your fingers just fine and this—yeah, you should have all the colors you need in here and it’s the cheap one.”

You hand the bag of candy back to her and say, “Thanks.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, no problem,” and then turns to go to the cashier.

She pays before you and then heads out the door with a little wave, which you return with a smile.

//

As it turns out, however, she’s a total  _bitch._ You have to sit next to her in Algebra II, because your last names are close in the alphabet and it’s assigned seating. For about four minutes you’re sure it’s going to be fine, because she gives you a small smile and then plops down in her seat to your right, takes out a notebook with graph paper and a pen, and then opens some novel, you guess, under the desk.

Your teacher calls out your name, and you raise your hand and say, “Here,” and then hers—“Carmilla Karnstein,” and,  _oh—_ and she lifts her hand apathetically without even looking up.

She does, however, after roll, put her book away and pick up her pen. She spreads out a little bit, her left arm bumping into your right, and she looks at your with a glare before turning to her notebook. You actually pay attention to the grading system, when assignments are due, how graphing calculators can and cannot be used on exams, and when you look over at her, she’s doodled a very unflattering—but pretty decent—caricature of your teacher and then a bunch of  _dicks_ around it, and those are all covered with large no signs, which almost makes you laugh until she catches you looking and slams her notebook shut.

You wonder if she remember the fact that she was actually nice to you once when she storms out of class later.

//

She fidgets  _all of the fucking time_ , twirling her pen around her fingers—and who the  _fuck_ does math in pen? She bounces her leg and reads under the desk half of the time, barely ever takes notes and only turns her homework in probably 75% of the time.

Math isn’t your strongest or favorite subject, but you work hard, because you know with good grades and a track scholarship, you can probably get out of this place and go to a pretty good university, but Carmilla really doesn’t seem to care about any of that.

She, does, however, set the curve for pretty much  _every exam_ , which you know because your teacher hands them back every time, and Carmilla’s usually have something like a  _96% :)_  on them, and if you didn’t have more pride, you’d probably ask her to, like, maybe fail a little more, because you could really use more than four extra points on your 82% if you want an A in this class.

//

“She’s such a fucking  _bitch_ ,” you say, leaning back against the side of Laura’s bed, stretching out your legs.

Perry frowns in your direction and LaF chuckles but doesn’t look up from where they’re painting Perry’s nails with some terrible glittery polish Laura had had from when she was, like, twelve.

“Maybe she’s just misunderstood,” Laura says, looking up from her messy job of trying to get her nails a neat shade of pale pink.

“Laura,” LaF says, “she drew a penis on the edge of Danny’s homework right before she handed it to the teacher.”

Laura grimaces and that makes even Perry laugh.

LaFontaine kisses Perry’s cheek and you roll your eyes because, really, between their ridiculous cuteness and Laura’s general oblivion and Carmilla’s bitchiness and State Championships in track coming up and the fact that Kirsch even exists in the general vicinity of  _any_ of your friends, you’re annoyed at kind of everything.

“Well,” Laura says, “maybe she was bored.”

You groan and LaFontaine says, “Laura.”

“What?” Laura moves her hands and then says, “Darn,” with a little grunt, because she’s definitely not at all managed to get any of her polish even at all.

LaFontaine kisses the top of Perry’s hand and Perry smiles softly and then they look at Laura. “I can help you with that next if you want.”

Laura sighs. “Thanks.”

“As long as your dad bought chips.”

“There’s always chips, LaF,” she says with a little smile.

//

She misses a few days near the end of October, and when she comes back, she doesn’t read or doodle or take notes—she just  _sits_ there.

She’s wearing a beanie and long sleeves and jeans and boots and her bangs cover one of her eyes and she’s so  _still_ , and she has her eyes closed for, like, half of class, you almost think she’s fallen asleep.

But then she fidgets a little, and you almost ask if she’s okay, because you feel unexpectedly sort of weird in the not so great way about the whole thing, but she slides out of her chair with a groan and a glare in your direction at the bell, and you don’t think of asking again.

//

She slides in next to you one day and props her chin in her hand.

“So, how does it feel for everyone to know you like fucking girls too?”

“ _What_?” 

“You came out, right?”

“Well, yeah,” you say, because, well, you had.

She nods. “I don’t really understand the appeal of boys whatsoever, but, whatever, that’s your identity, but—you do know I’m a lesbian, right?”

“Are you—are you  _hitting_ on me?”

She looks honestly  _repulsed_ , and says, “Oh,  _god_ no. Forget it.”

“Whatever,” you say, because you have an exam today that you hadn’t really studied for.

Thankfully, she only gets a 93%, and those seven points really do help pull up your 76%.

//

LaFontaine is applying sunscreen to Perry’s sunscreen and Laura is picking at the hem of her tshirt and dangling her legs in the pool. 

“I wonder if she got a better grade than I did,” you say, then lift your shirt.

Laura glances over your entire body  _twice_ , and—that’s interesting. You almost laugh but then you remember how terrible your coming out was—has been, still is—and it’s not funny at all anymore.

“Why do you care?” Perry asks.

“Because Carmilla’s a bitch,” LaF says, “remember?”

Perry rolls her eyes but smiles when LaF gives her a little squeeze to the shoulder and says, “At least one of us will stay safe when swimming now.”

Perry shakes her head fondly at them, and you roll your eyes and dive into the pool easily, pop up a few yards away. Perry carefully climbs in and LaF jumps in a clumsy cannonball, which makes Laura shriek.

“She never even turned in her fucking homework,” you say.

Laura rolls her eyes and kicks a little water in your direction. “Well, you did, and you got a good grade in the class, and I’m proud of you for that.”

Sometimes she still makes you kind of want to tell the entire world to fuck off so she can stay so  _good_ , and from the way LaF and Perry are looking at her, you know they’re probably thinking the same thing.

“Thanks, Laura.”

She shrugs. “Of course.”

“Aren’t you gonna swim?”

She hunches a little, stares at her tshirt, then says, “No, I don’t want to mess up my highlights.”

She’d just gotten them, and was very proud, and Mark had grumbled about his little girl growing up too fast, but you swim over and pat her leg. “They're really pretty, Laura,” and she grins.

LaF says, “Suit yourself,” and pounces on Perry’s back, who shrugs them off—smiling—with a splash.

//

You groan when you see Carmilla already seated in the back of AP Lit, hunched over, as always, some book. It’s  _hot_ outside, and she’s in a tanktop and jeans and a flannel pulled over her shirt, although she has converse on this time.

You sit down as far away from her as you possibly can, and you hope that her participation in this class will be about the same as her participation in Algebra II, because then you can basically ignore her entire existence.

But by the second day of class you realize you are nowhere near that lucky, because after you point out the very obvious metaphor between the United States’ reaction to communism and Miller’s  _The Crucible_ , which you’re just starting, her hand immediately shoots up. Your teacher calls on her and she says, “First of all, it’s not a metaphor,  _The Crucible_ is an allegory.”

You roll your eyes.

“Secondly, it’s not purely the United States’ reaction to communism, because that’s a relatively perverse and sweeping statement in regard to the specifics of Miller’s work, which was dealing with, primarily, the HUAC trials and the dangerous anti-communist sentiment in the 1950s.”

Your teacher looks absolutely  _delighted_ and you might be impressed if Carmilla wasn’t a  _huge asshole_.

She shoots a smile in your direction before going back to her book.

//

This is not an isolated incident.

She’s smart—fine—but she’s also a pretentious  _fuck_ , who essentially takes any opportunity whatsoever to point out when someone is wrong—usually  _semantically_ , and your teacher absolutely  _loves_  her.

You take a small amount of satisfaction in the fact that she gets asked to stay after class one day, and it’s not your fault your locker is pretty close to the door.

“Carmilla,” your teacher says, then sighs, “you’re the best student in this class, by far, and—can you please put forth more effort on your actual assignments?”

You slam your locker and walk away, because you work harder than she ever has, and you’re smart, you know that—but you’re not smart like that; you don’t have all day to just read; your parents actually do care about you, even if that care is kind of wrong and painful sometimes.

You run into Kirsch in the hallway, and you’re fighting really mortifying  _tears_  all of a sudden, and he stops you. “Hey, what’s up, summer psycho?”

He’s legitimately concerned, and it makes you want to  _punch_  something, and you say, “Nothing,” and stalk away.

//

You spend a lot of time kind of wondering how many episodes of  _Dexter_  you’d have to watch to be able to commit a double homicide against Carmilla and Kirsch, because you can only take so much.

You mention this at lunch one day while Carmilla is probably close enough to hear you, and Laura glares.

LaF raises their eyebrows because Laura has that angry pinched look on her face, and Perry is about to say something to probably try to calm her down, but Laura says, “They’re both my friends, Danny, and I would appreciate it if you showed even a  _little_ bit of kindness toward them.”

You feel a little ashamed—even if they’re both  _annoying as fuck_ —because the very best thing about Laura is exactly what she asked of you—Laura is the kindest person you know—and you look at Carmilla, who is leaning against a tree, and she’s smiling sadly just the tiniest bit.

You remember SJ, you remember Laura’s mom, you have no idea what Carmilla’s been through, but the way this world works, she’s probably lost someone too.

“Sorry, Laura,” you say.

Her face softens and she says, “I forgive you.”

That afternoon at your meet you set a new state record in your favorite event, because you’re  _angry_ at yourself, and you try to celebrate through hot, salty tears stinging along with the sweat in your eyes.

Laura gives you a hug afterward anyway, and LaF and Perry give you high fives, and even Kirsch smiles in your direction with a lame thumbs up.

/

You take a small amount of satisfaction in the fact that Carmilla failed the flour baby project, but then you feel bad because Laura did too; you take an even larger amount of satisfaction in the fact that Carmilla got detention, but so did Laura, and you’re just about ready to rip Carmilla’s  _head_ off when you remember Laura’s softness, and you stalk off after Kirsch, because, well, at this point, he’s the best option.

Which is saying something.

/

Apparently this isn’t a good week for anyone, because Laura seems sad and Kirsch is  _really_ sad and Carmilla is especially arrogant in AP Lit, even though you catch her wincing multiple times after she raises her hand, and the same feeling when you’d noticed her sitting so still in Algebra II creeps up the back of your neck.

But then she goes off on some rant about the mistaken use of the word  _anthology_ when examining Whitman’s “Song of Myself”—which, apparently, she has fucking  _memorized_ —and you push your feeling of discomfort down. Laura’s probably a better person than you, or maybe she and Carmilla are just disgustingly in love—you’re starting to become more sure of this theory when she meets Laura at her locker near yours after class and a smile immediately blooms on her face when Laura gives her a hug—and you sigh.

/

You groan when Carmilla trudges up behind Perry and plops down on her other side.

She looks incredibly bored the entire time except for when Laura glances back, and you’re more than convinced that Carmilla came to watch Laura, and a little part of you is happy at that, because Laura seems kind of set on making Carmilla her friend, or _whatever_ , and if that’s going to happen, Carmilla might as well put forth some effort too—and she does, at least right now, because whenever Laura glances back, that stupid, lovely hopeful expression on her face that she’s had for a long time, that you don’t want any asshole to take away, Carmilla grins.

And it gets even better, surprisingly, because then she rolls her eyes  _hard_ when the wide receiver goes down. It’s totally a clean hit, and he’s quite the wimp, because he just  _lays_ there. You’ve had a concussion before, and you’ve been hurt plenty of times during a variety of sports throughout your years, and really—he’s wearing pads, it can’t be all that terrible.

Perry makes some inane comment about an ambulance and Carmilla, surprisingly, beats you to scoffing, though, not by much.

You’re bored too, so you stand and shout, “Let’s put this show on the road, ref!” and then sigh when that does absolutely  _nothing_  and sit back down.

And  _then_ , to make everything even  _more_ fun, Perry asks Carmilla about, apparently, when Carmilla had seen Perry and LaF the other day in the bathroom— _face-sucking_ , as Carmilla had so eloquently said—and you feel bad, then, for all of them: Perry and LaF are really very much in love, you know, and they have been for a long time, even through their fights and their misunderstandings freshman year. You’re happy for them, you really are in that respect—their love is really special—but you’re so sad and worried at the same time, because their closet, especially, is a deep one.

And then it surprises you, because you actually feel  _bad_ for Carmilla, who looks kind of hurt when she sighs and then sits up straight and kind of  _goes off_  on Perry, which, like,  _no one_ does. “No, just cut your crap. The only reason you’re pretending to be nice or asked me to sit with you is to ensure I’m in your good books. And you know what? I don’t appreciate people using me.” 

Perry looks really surprised and you’re conflicted, because Carmilla is rude and brash but she is kind of  _right_ , which is a gross sentence you never thought you’d grant her.

But, whatever, Carmilla continues, “No, whatever. You’re both stupid, but it’s done and you’re lucky it was me who walked in and not someone else. Because me? I’m not going to say anything. And not because I’m a friend of Laura’s - although she is the large reason stopping me from hitting you right now - but because despite what you might believe, I can sometimes be a decent person. So just take a fucking chill pill and shut the fuck up about this already.”

Perry looks sad and Carmilla looks really satisfied, and something about her smug little expression makes you want to give her at least a  _little_ bit of a hard time.

“So, Carm, I’ve been meaning to ask - what brings you to the game today?”

She smiles at you in a ridiculous manner that seems a lot like when you saw her smile at the kid in your class who insisted that the green light in  _The Great Gatsby_ was just, like, actual green light, which, okay, you agreed with her on the lecture she’d supplied after that comment.

“Thought I would try out some school spirit. Go Lions.”

Perry turns to her, “We’re actually the Silas Panthers.”

Carmilla looks maybe more annoyed than you’ve ever seen her—which is saying something—but then she looks over to where the band is sitting. They’re a pretty big band, and they’re all in those ridiculous uniforms, but Carmilla’s eyes never waver from Laura, whom she immediately finds.

And yep, they’re, well— _whatever._

“So, what’s the real reason you’re here?” you ask, and you grin when Carmilla looks angry, because—you’re totally right. “Anything to do with your new friend that keeps looking back in this direction every ten minutes?”

Laura turns around just then, and Carmilla smiles—without fail,  _every time_ , and you want to laugh, but then the lame ass injured wide receiver finally limps off the field and everyone cheers, and the band plays something.

Carmilla turns to look at you and your stomach kind of does a weird flop—which you choose entirely to ignore—when she says, “You know, I’m starting to wonder why you’re here as well. Do you and the idiot have some sort of weird thing going on where you get off to watching him get his ass kicked out there?”

Everyone has lost so much, and you know what this day is to Kirsch—you’d know SJ too. “Hey. Lay off him today.”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow. 

You  _try_ to tell her about SJ, about how serious a loss this is, and you know deflection of emotion when you see it—it’s not one of your better traits sometimes, but whatever, but then she’s a  _huge_ bitch, saying something completely disrespectful and frankly terrible about SJ when she didn’t even really  _know_ SJ, and you feel uncomfortable when she says, “Just because someone dies doesn’t eliminate all the terrible things they did when they were still alive,” but you ignore it, because Perry is really trying to control the situation, and you know it’d hurt Laura if you physically knocked Carmilla down the bleachers or something.

The rest of the game is awkward and your chest aches a little bit for Kirsch, because, like, he plays  _terribly_ , and you kind of understand why this time, at least, and you know you’re smart and have a really great shot at some really good universities because of academics in addition to track, but football is his best chance, and this certainly doesn’t help.

Perry seems hell bent on getting pretty much every term about football wrong, and Carmilla zones out until Laura looks at her, arms crossed over her chest, and it’s pretty much not over soon enough. 

You stand up immediately when the game is over, and you’re just really tired of all of this shit—people you don’t like making you feel stuff.

Laura owes you some ice cream or something for this one.

/

Laura is  _really upset_  when Carmilla misses a few days of school, because they’d had a fight, and she picks at her lunch and fights back tears, and you’ve always  _hated_ when Laura cried.

But then Carmilla is back in AP Lit a few days later, and she sits despondently until someone says something ridiculous about Hemingway.

She raises her hand slowly and then says her rant a little breathily, and you don’t even want to think about what that might mean.

/

You’re pretty sure they’re either kissing or dating or will be kissing or dating soon, and you don’t think Carmilla deserves someone like Laura in the slightest—maybe no one deserves someone like Laura, though—and you’ll give her that: Carmilla is way nicer now.

Which doesn’t mean she’s not a pretentious fuck in AP Lit, but at least she’s a little less condescending now.

**Author's Note:**

> check out carmilla's hsau, fool's gold, on ao3 or tumblr. track the tag [#carmilla hsau] for general updates, fanart, answered asks, & lots of other cool stuff. bianca's tumblr is felixdawkins; olivia's is turnandchasethewind.


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